While George and Holly made their preparations, Lockwood stayed with me in the attic to try and keep me calm.

"Thank you." He began as we sat on the end of my bed. His arm was around me and he was rubbing my shoulder very slightly too hard. "I could not do this without you."

"I think Flo said it best." My voice rasped. "Just don't die."

He kissed a place behind my ear and I felt myself blush. In all the madness of that evening, it was easy to forget that it was only days since the events at Fittes House. That Lockwood and I had officially been a couple such a very short time. I wasn't quite used to this casually given, but deeply meant affection, though I needed it so much.

"I was hoping we'd have more time together." I told him softly. "You know, maybe years – months at least, not days and hours."

He rested his head against mine. "We will. This is just the first hurdle."

"Oh great! So even if you do survive this stupidity, I can expect more of the same for years to come?" I pulled a face.

He grinned. "Lucy, we've been a team for three years. We've lived together, for most of that time. You can't tell me you don't know what I'm like!"

I sighed and murmured close to his ear. "Yes, you're bloody frustrating. God knows what I see in you!"

We did that long gazing thing again. The one that we'd been perfecting for pretty much all of the three years.

"I had four months without you in my life, I don't ever want to go through that again." I reminded him.

"Me either." He sighed. "I told you, Lucy. If you seriously asked me not to do this, I wouldn't do it. That is how far we've come, how much you mean to me." He gave a weak smile. "The trouble is your resolve is as weak as my own. You've never been particularly good at saying this sort of hard 'no' to me. Telling me off, yes. Setting boundaries, of course. Saying something you knew would hurt me…just the once."

"When I walked away?"

He nodded.

We were quiet for a while. "What was it like?" I asked. "Last time. When you were ghost touched before?"

"Bloody painful." He stated. "And I'm anticipating this time will be worse. Last time, we immediately jumped out of a burning building. The level of adrenaline in my system was pretty high so I had a high pain threshold. I've told Holly to factor that in. It's one of the reasons why I think her suggestion that she pre-doses me is sensible. The scarring isn't much fun, either. It tightens the skin if you don't rub special oil into it regularly."

"Scarring?"

He gave me a curious look. "You've seen me without my shirt on, Luce. Surely, you've seen the scars? 'Scars' plural as now there is the bullet wound too."

"Seen you without your shirt on? No, not really. I mean how rare are the occasions you do surface with a wrinkle out of place or any other form of un-dress!" I teased. "As for looking when you take your shirt off…" I blushed. "It just felt a bit…inappropriate. I mean, technically you were my boss."

Lockwood laughed. "Oh, as we've mentioned before, I think propriety has completely left the building with you and me. We live under the same roof as well as work together. Doing things 'properly' never really stood much chance once I stopped calling you Miss Carlyle." He reached up and figured his mother's sapphire where it hung around my neck. His eyes flicked to mine. "When I stopped thinking of you as 'Miss Carlyle' and instead thought of you as m…"

He coughed as though changing direction.

"And you became 'Lucy and Luce'." Then he grinned. "Here…"

To my astonishment he started to unbutton his shirt and I felt the colour rise to my cheeks again. He slipped his shirt from his left shoulder and now I really did see the webbed patterning on his pale skin: raised weals and purple thread veins covering the area around his collarbone on the left-hand side. How it had avoided his heart, was a matter for a different kind of heavenly body.

In a daze, I raised my hand to his skin and traced the pattern with my fingertips. Lockwood closed his eyes at my touch and despite myself, I smiled. I wondered where I got the confidence from. This was all new to me, the idea that I could ever be this close to someone.

To Lockwood, in particular. The guy who let very few people into his close circle, who shared almost nothing of his private thoughts and even less of his emotions.

Except, apparently, with me.

If he survived this, what was around the corner for us? How close would we become?

IF he survived this.

Lockwood opened his eyes and we stared at each other. Without understanding how I knew, I was aware that we had been thinking exactly the same thing. Would we get the chance to be as close as we clearly both needed? If he died tonight, I would never know what it was to feel his skin against mine.

Without thinking, I raised two of my fingers to my lips and kissed them. Then I reached once again for his scars and touched them gently. Lockwood gave a small, quick, but meaningful intake of breath and then his own fingers found the back of my neck and he drew my head towards his lips. I met him halfway.

"Kissing you is so easy." He murmured softly seconds later when we broke apart.

"You're so warm." I commented. "I'm scared the next time I kiss you your skin will be cold."

"Tell me not to do it. Tell me to find some other way." His tone belied his words.

"I can't. You're right. I do not know how to say no to you in this sort of situation. Not when there is so much pain for Jessica if you don't do this. Not when I can't guarantee that I wouldn't do the same."

"Your support, even when you didn't agree has always been important to me. Your literal 'leaps of faith'."

"I guess I should be glad this one is on ground level." I quipped.

"You are unique, Lucy. No one else has ever understood why before. Not the way you do. Everyone else would focus on the wrongness of my choices. You focus on what is right – and then you step alongside me and join in. Does that make me insane, or you?" He was thoughtful. "I rather think it's more that we are two halves of one whole. I was right, by the way. You do keep me safe."

Lockwood pulled away from me and crawled up the bed to sit back against the headboard. Then he reached out for me, and I followed, slipping into his arms and laying my head on his bare chest. His skin was warm, and I felt his heart beating against my cheek. His head lowered to mine, and I felt his own cheek resting lightly in my hair. The fingers of our free hands linked.

We said nothing. We did nothing.

We were still lying like that half an hour later when George came to tell us it was time. He knocked on the door and I leapt up quickly, keen to meet him at the bottom of the stairs and lead the way back onto the landing.

Behind me, I knew Lockwood was re-buttoning his shirt.

In our absence, George, Kipps and Holly had transformed the library, moving furniture around once again like a stage crew resetting the theatre. Extraneous furniture had been moved to the "wings" at the sides of the room or through the archway into the living room The main lights remained off and small table lamps had been repositioned to focus on the central point where there was now a makeshift bed of a thin duvet on the floor. Carefully stacked nearby was a good selection of first aid equipment, including a green briefcase-sized box marked 'AED'.

Lockwood was impressed. "Where did you get that?" He asked motioning towards the box.

Holly grinned. "Arif's. It's stored inside the shop, so is only accessible during the day and not when the shop is closed. He told me he had it several weeks ago – I think he worries about us and what our job means. I went round to see him earlier and he's let us borrow it. I've promised to help him with his accounts in return."

She went on to explain that everything had to be set up as though Lockwood would need resuscitation and / or the recovery position. This explained the thinness of the bed, the lack of pillow. Every second would count and removing obstacles in a hurry would be added delay.

The mere thought of what that implied was enough to make me catch and hold my breath. I forced myself to calm down and try to approach this from George's scientific perspective. Rational, planned thinking. Contingency plans and informed action.

Yeah. Like that was going to work!

Once I'd finished torturing myself by looking at the physical preparations, I looked harder at the people present. George had his notebook out and was flicking furiously through his notes, scrubbing things out with a biro, making other adjustments. Every now and then, he would frown and move to the library to pick up a book from the shelves. Sometimes it was a dictionary, sometimes it was a medical text. The weirdest one was the magazine he pulled from a pile beside the chair Lockwood favoured in the evenings. Where our esteemed leader used to sit and read his society press in the early days of Lockwood & Co. These days he focussed more on the main-stream press because nine times out of ten, that's where we were. There was no need to aspire to the society press anymore. The agency was renowned for success and not notorious for failure.

Anyway, the title George pulled from the pile appeared to be a US tabloid which specialised in particularly bizarre stories, and I must have looked very confused because he saw me watching him and shrugged.

"Sometimes we have to look beyond accepted wisdom for answers, Luce. Don't forget, until The Problem, people who believed in ghosts were often treated as figures of fun. This particular publication has a very good article on flatliners. Completely bonkers to most people, but it's actually very well researched and there's some good info on resuscitation."

"Flatliners?" I asked blankly.

George scratched the back of his neck. "Yes, a truly insane, but fortunately minor, population of scientists – usually medical students – who experiment with deliberately dying in an attempt to experience the afterlife. They work in teams to stop a person's heart and then resuscitate them."

Holly looked shocked. "What a really stupid idea!" She exclaimed, walking past him with a biscuit tin filled with items we would use to protect Lockwood against ghost-lock. The contents of the tin resembled those that might usually only belong to a drug addict. I caught Lockwood's eye and he chuckled quietly at the irony.

Like George, Holly was purposeful. She knew her role and was just getting on with it. Whilst that was reassuring, I had recently realised just how good an actor Holly was, which left me with a slightly reduced sense of comfort in her calm tonight.

By contrast, Kipps appeared to be freaking out about the length of time it took for him to get a dialling tone when he picked up the phone receiver in the hall.

"George, there may be a fault on the line. Seriously, it's taking 4.5 seconds before I get the dialling tone. And when I do I hear lots of clicks at the exchange. I've tried 174 and 175 to test the line, and it says it's okay, but are we sure we want to risk waiting until something goes wrong before we call the night ambulance. I mean it's almost certain something is going to go wrong. Let's just dial 999 now."

None of us laughed at him, but Lockwood shook his head. "The night ambulance is the last resort, Quill. If they come out, we will have to tell them what is going on. What we are doing is a reportable incident. It will trigger a DEPRAC visit, even if I survive. We'll all be arrested and I'm not sure we've quite built up the goodwill we would need from Barnes to avoid ending up in court. Besides it would come under the umbrella of dodgy experimentation and the country is still reeling from the Rotwell and Fittes revelations. If Barnes thought we were doing the kind of stuff Steve and Penelope got up to, we might need to resuscitate him!" He avoided looking at me as he said the next bit. "My risk. My decision."

I turned away and walked over to the other occupants of the room. It was colder in their corner, and I wondered if anyone else had noticed they were there. Our "little ghost-hunting agency" had a tolerant attitude to these particular spirits. I suspected we were the only agents in the country who willingly share their living space with ghosts. Willingly to the point of not even noticing their presence.

Their corner was extremely cold and unusually quiet. Normally, I would have expected a cacophony of delighted shrieks, insults and unhelpful observations from Skull. He was renowned for his forthright opinions on the members of Lockwood & Co and our various shortcomings. He gloried in the idea of our demise.

Instead, right now he was thoughtful, oddly stationary and his eyes were miles away even though he appeared to be staring at the other spectral form standing beside him. I remembered his bizarre behaviour from earlier and wondered again at it. Skull appeared to be struggling with what we were doing. It didn't make sense.

Jessica Lockwood was her usual faint self. It was as though the two spirits: Skull and Lockwood's sister, had been printed by the celestial printer at different times. Skull had been printed in bold when the printer ribbon was new and the ink extremely black. Jessica had been printed in grayscale when the ribbon was dried out.

She was agitated, doing the ghost equivalent of jiggling on the spot. I almost asked her if she needed the bathroom, like you might a four-year old.

As I approached, Skull finally noticed me.

"Any idea what we can do to stop Little Miss Ants-in-her-pants?" He asked. "Just looking at her makes me want to scratch and check for fleas."

And yet, the tone with which he spoke had a decidedly fake feel to it, as though the quip had been forced. Coupled with his whole attitude over the last six hours, something was definitely up with him. I shrugged, still pondering his behaviour. Then Skull peered at me as if he suddenly looked at me properly. "Oh god. You and Lockwood have been having a 'moment', haven't you?" He noted.

"Just exactly what is that supposed to mean?" I snapped back, glad no one else could hear his comments.

I'd forgotten Jessica.

She turned to look at me. I rolled my eyes to the ceiling and blew out a breath, inwardly cursing the Skull, who I now addressed in a bored tone.

"If by 'moment' you mean did we sit and talk about the fact that he's about to put his life on the line in the slim hope that we can actually pull this off, then…yes. If you mean, did we talk about us and how we are both scared for our future, and yet, how much we both want one together then…yes.

If, and I suspect this is more the kind of 'moment' your disgusting little brain is probably contemplating, you mean did we go somewhere private to engage in some sort of illicit ripping off of clothing and consummation of our relationship then…no we absolutely did not. No passion was expended. No clothing was removed."

Ok, technically that last little bit wasn't quite true, but I wasn't admitting that to him.

"Rather defensive there, Lucy, aren't we?" he commented dryly. "One might even say…disappointed."

"Oh, shut up!" I turned my back on him, and then did a double take as Jessica slid in front of me. I groaned.

"Honestly, Jessica. Anthony is being a complete gentleman. We're both being sensible." I tried to reassure her with a weak grin.

"It's not that." She said softly. I was a little more tuned into her now and didn't need to hold the necklace to hear her. She stopped again. "I get the feeling he wouldn't go through with this…experiment if you asked him not to."

I nodded. "He said as much to me." I held a hand up to forestall her next comment. "But I also know that if I did, I would hurt him. He's been our leader for a long time now. I've learned to trust his judgement in tight situations. I can't let my personal feelings interfere. However painful the thought of losing him is."

In the corner of my eye, I saw Skull flinch.

Curious.

Jessica smiled wistfully. "In my mind he's still nine years old. It's difficult for me to see him as a grown man, capable of falling in love."

"I get that. But he is a grown man." I pulled a face. "I think you'll find he's still as stubborn as ever – and occasionally reckless. He's convinced me this isn't one of those occasions."

Jessica mirrored my apprehension. "Yes. He always did lack a sense of personal safety." She grinned. "Trees were his kryptonite. He couldn't pass a good one without needing to climb it. Which was fine while we lived at Portland Row, but when we visited Uncle Charles, you had to put a leash on him or he'd be up the nearest redwood – and down it again pretty quickly, and inelegantly."

"Lucy?" George called me.

I turned. Lockwood was now reclining on the floor with my family sitting around him.

Holly had centre stage. Spread out beside her was a clean white handkerchief with various bottles, measuring spoons and a tray with 2 glass phials and syringes in it. She glanced nervously at George.

"Run through the checklist again." She commanded.

"Sedatives. Adrenaline. Cryoprotectant." He stated. "I'll give you the measurements in a second. Anthony," George said, quietly. I blinked. George never called Lockwood by his first name. "I think you should take the sedative now, give it time to work."

Lockwood nodded. "Thanks George, How much?"

George checked his notes and told him. Holly measured the quantity out into a small cup and handed it to Lockwood to drink.

"Why liquid?" I asked. I'd ignored the finer details until now, convinced everyone would regain their common sense. Holly looked up from monitoring Lockwood.

"My first aid training is limited." She told me. "The medications I'm allowed access to are also limited. I've been trained to administer adrenaline and cryoprotectant via syringe, but they haven't given me access to sedatives. Like you, I can only use over the counter stuff." She chuckled as Lockwood drank the solution and winced at the taste.

"I can remember taking that stuff as a kid when I broke my leg." He explained. "Doesn't taste any nicer with age."

I glanced at Jessica. "He broke his leg?"

She nodded. "Redwoods…remember?"

We exchanged mutual eye rolls and I felt a new kinship with Lockwood's sister. I just hope it lasted beyond tonight.

"What happens if the sedative doesn't work?" Kipps asked. "Do we give him more?"

Holly shook her head. "Absolutely not! Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? He's had the maximum over-the-counter dose. I'm not giving him anything I'm not qualified to administer."

"Lucy?" My boss/partner/significant other called me. I walked the short distance to where Lockwood was lying on the floor, found a spot where I wasn't in the way and sat beside him. He reached for me with his right hand and we linked our fingers. He smiled.

"How long until the sedative kicks in?" I asked George.

"Around 15 minutes. Because it's liquid his body will start absorbing it straight away without it needing to reach his stomach." He told me. "We'll give it 10 minutes and then start though. Dawn is approaching and I'd rather not wait until tomorrow to try this again."

My gaze met Lockwood's. The entire reason for us spending time together earlier had been for the private affection away from the spotlight of our friends' attentions. We both knew that. Since we'd acknowledged how we felt about each other those few short days ago, Lockwood and I had largely done a good job of hiding physical demonstrations of our relationship in front of other people. No pecks on the cheek, no post-case hugs. Just the occasional gaze or brief hand-holding thing.

Not that they didn't all know how we felt about each other.

My job now was to be the professional business partner. Cool, detached and ready to assist when necessary. Picking up the old source when it was discarded. Ready to give an opinion if asked.

Lockwood raised an eyebrow at me and squeezed my hand again.

Screw that!

I sighed, leaned forward, and kissed him on the lips gently.

"Always." I whispered. He smiled softly.

"Always." He whispered in return.

No one else said a word.

For the benefit of those who don't like needles, I'm not going to describe in detail how Holly administered the injections. I'm not a massive fan of injections, but on this occasion, I did actually watch.

I had to for my sanity, but I didn't need to, because every time we moved on to a next stage in the proceedings, I felt a change in the way Lockwood's fingers touched mine. He was trying to reassure me, but I could tell he was scared.

For the first time since I'd met him, I truly believed he wanted to live.

And then the standard injections were done and Holly sat back on her heels, removing all the detritus to a safe place, then standing up to go and prepare the emergency injections which we all hoped would not be necessary.

George nudged me. "Okay, it's time for the sources."

He straightened Lockwood's left hand out to one side, flat and palm up, as far away from his body as he could. I looked over at Jessica. It would be harder to communicate with her when I didn't have the necklace.

"Okay, Jessica?" I asked.

She pulled a face. "No. But…" She hesitated. "This is truly what he wants?"

She knew the answer.

"I don't exactly see anyone holding him down." The Skull chimed in a humourless tone. He looked decidedly uneasy, and I still didn't have an inkling why. He hated Lockwood, saw Jessica as an inconvenience he could do without. Why did he even care what happened to them? Whilst he was an important part of my life at Lockwood & Co, I would never trust the Skull further than I could throw his old silver-glass jar. That thing had been heavy. My back still hadn't recovered from the years of carting it around in a rucksack.

"Luce?"

I was surprised. It was Jessica who called me. Her use of the more affectionate version of my name was unexpected.

"Jess?" I replied, tentatively.

"Don't let me kill him."

I nodded and glanced down at Lockwood who seemed at ease. His gaze was still on me, but his pupils had constricted, despite the low light. His eyelids blinked slightly less than normal. The sedative was starting to take effect.

I handed the silver necklace to George. Kipps also passed over the new source, which had been entrusted to his care.

"Remind me why we are doing this again?" He queried. "Jessica Lockwood is a ghost. We could just banish her and problem solved!"

I heard a curse from the corner of the room where the Skull lurked.

George pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose.

"Because Jessica is a Type three, which makes her a sentient being. She has thoughts and feelings, and the capacity to learn. Because of her ties to Lockwood, she was accidently bound into a silver necklace, a literal torture device to any kind of spirit. Banishing her would end it for her, but it would be the most painful experience you can ever imagine in that duration.

And it's not what Jessica wants. She isn't looking to cross over. She wants to stay between the two realms, she just doesn't want to be in pain. You've seen how spirits flinch from silver. For Jessica, there is no flinching away. It's constantly in contact with her plasm. We owe it to her, as we would any and every other sentient being, human or otherwise, to try and ease her pain. It was her love for Lockwood which bound her. Therefore, it needs to be Lockwood who helps her move on to a new source. And…"

Kipps put up a hand. "That's fine. I just wanted to remind us all that we did have a justification for it, so that when it all goes wrong, and we are answering DEPRAC's questions we are all giving the same answers."

I glanced at Lockwood who had now closed his eyes.

"There is only one answer to give, Quill." I said quietly. "This is what Lockwood wanted us to do."

George glanced towards Jessica. "Ready, Jessica?"

She too closed her eyes and then nodded.

George sat back.

The two sources lay on Lockwood's palm now. Everyone except me withdrew.

I pressed a final kiss to Lockwood's cheek, squeezed his hand and moved back.

Lockwood had not acknowledged any of it.

I could see Jessica was steeling herself for the task. I watched as she wound back to do her quick dive back into her source, through Lockwood's hand and into the new source.

We all held our breath.

"Stooooppppp!"

I'd actually seen Jessica begin the manoeuvre when the cry came. I wish I could say the source of the cry was a surprise, but the bastard had done this before at tense moments. Skull had form. One particular instance of his last-minute meddling had been Lockwood falling head-first down a booby-trapped stone staircase in Marissa Fittes' tomb.

He'd then cackled at the sight so heavily I'd thought he was going to split his plasm. There was no cackling this time.

"What?!" I snapped at the Skull. "This is not the time for your petty little games, Thomas! I thought we'd moved on from your manipulations."

He glared at me. "Not everything in the universe is about you and your boyfriend, Carlyle." He snapped back.

I blinked in shock.

Annoying, sardonic though he was, Skull had rarely been outwardly hostile – or certainly not to this level.

Or at least not since we'd dealt with Bickerstaff and his former master's influence had ceased.

"What?" I asked more gently.

Skull didn't reply. Instead, I watched as he crossed to Jessica and began talking to her quietly, far too low a volume for me to hear. She looked shocked at his words and then questioning. Skull nodded. Jessica's whole demeanour changed. She watched Skull carefully. He nodded encouragement and then, to my surprise, I watched him reach a spectral hand towards her own. Jessica's form half-flinched at the touch, and then settled. Their "hands" joined briefly then twisted and their fingertips touched. I saw Skull say two words.

"Like this."

And then he clicked his fingers. Jessica's eyes widened in understanding. She grinned at him and I saw a steely resolve in her eyes.

It unnerved me and I couldn't say why, although part of me had an inkling that it was connected to the way Skull held Jessica's hand – and I wondered what Lockwood would have said if he'd seen the action the way I had.

With a final glance around the room to check where everyone was, Jessica Lockwood made her move. It was slower than I'd expected. Elegant, even. I guess I was just used to soaring malignant spirits tearing through the air determined to ghost touch any living being within the room. Jessica floated gently to Lockwood's left-hand side. We shifted away from her, but there was really no need as she was being extremely careful to avoid us. I watched her hover briefly over her brother's sleeping form, an affectionate smile on her face. Without words, I knew she was seeing once again the sleeping child she had watched over when she lived. Jessica glanced at me, nodded once and then reached a single digit towards her source.

It was a beautiful sight.

Jessica's ethereal light entered the silver necklace and it glowed briefly. Behind me, I heard Skull gasp a sound as if in pain. I turned to look at him and saw he was holding his finger as if he had caught it in a trap or reached out to touch frozen metal. At the same time, I too felt a targeted burning in my own left hand, small but intense.

Almost immediately, the necklace fell from Lockwood's palm and Jessica was back standing next to him.

She hadn't even touched the second source.

"What's wrong?" I gasped. But it was the wrong thing to ask. I should have said, 'what's right?'.

We could all see Jessica. We could all see that something had changed. She was brighter, more clearly defined. To my surprise, in that instance, she appeared slightly clearer than Skull.

I reached out for the necklace where it had fallen.

George put a hand on my arm. "Don't Lucy!" He ordered. I shook my head.

"No, it's ok."

I picked up both items and felt…nothing. Jessica was not in either "source".

"She's free." Skull said simply. "She's left the necklace, but she didn't need the second source."

I looked at Jessica. "How?" I asked.

Skull shrugged. "Does it matter?" he asked. There was something about the way he was avoiding my eyes.

I glared at him.

"You KNEW!" I shouted at him. "You knew all along how to do this safely. Yet you said nothing."

"Define 'safely'." He said pointedly. "Safe for who? Jessica or Lockwood."

I frowned. "There's a difference?" I asked.

"Of course, there is! Ghost touch isn't dangerous for ghosts. It is for mortals." He sighed. "The safest way for Jessica to move herself was to simply ghost-touch her brother. Of course, you'd never have allowed that, it would have killed Lockwood. So, instead, you had to mess about with it, all that sedation and adrenalin crap. It would limit how she did it and put Jessica at risk." He sounded petulant. "You didn't think about what it might do for a soul to detach itself. She's never done it before. You only ever do it once, remember? There was no guarantee she'd be able to pull it off.

"Jessica didn't mention that." I protested. "And you had no problems detaching from your source."

"I didn't have a choice and come on, Lucy!" Skull complained. "Jessica would do anything for her brother, she would die a thousand times over for him, as no doubt, he would for her." He looked away. "Besides. She didn't know."

"What?!"

"I didn't tell her."

"Skull!" I complained. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I haven't a fucking clue, so if you work it out, will you please let me know." He muttered. Then he took a fake breath.

"The original plan would have killed Lockwood but saved Jessica. Although she'd have been pretty pissed off.

Your adjusted (druggie Lockwood) version would have hurt Lockwood, possibly not killed him, but there was a significant risk to Jessica. She might have been ok and successfully transferred to a new source, but there was the high risk it all went to hell in a handcart and Lockwood died. In her anger, Jessica would have lost control and could have ghost-touched the lot of you. Whichever unlucky sod remained would have been forced to send both sources to the furnaces. Bam! Jessica also gone. A lot of hassle just to wipe out Lockwood & Co. but I was tempted, believe me!"

"You don't like Jessica or Lockwood. So why did you interfere?" I asked him. "Sounds like you were onto a personal, win:win to me. Why the third way?"

"Hmmm…the third way. The first way sucked in principle because I'd have been getting earache about it for millennia. (Probably in stereo since Jessica and Lockwood would both be blighting my Other Life and I doubt you'd have taken it lying down.) The second way just seemed like a lot of hassle, and it might have ended up in you dying, which entertaining though that might be, my enjoyment would be short-lived since, of course, Jessica would have been properly banished too and I'd then be lacking in vaguely intelligent contact till the end of time. Irritating people to talk to is still better than no one to talk to." He paused. "There was also the possibility DEPRAC would find out about me and decide I was next."

"The third way?" I insisted.

"I remember the feeling of being snipped from my source during the explosion at Fittes' House. At the time I thought the severance was done to me with the force of the blast, but that idea never sat right with me. How could the skull be all but destroyed in a blunt event, but my contact with the skull cut so precisely, so delicately?

Eventually, I realised that I had done it instinctively myself in self-defence. I'd unconsciously protected my essence and my soul by cutting the tie. This meant I could 'wink out' at my own convenience and rematerialize when it was safer. I'd never had that freedom before." He looked wistful at the memory.

"So, you told Jessica how to do it." I finished for him while he day-dreamed.

Skull shook his head. "Not right away. Once I realised I had done it, I had to remember how I'd done it. That's taken a while and most of that time I've had other things on my mind. Like Ezekiel for one and then Jessica's arrival." He glanced at her. "She didn't exactly make it easy for me to ignore her."

"Oh?"

"Remember when I said she called me by my name and that pulled me from the maelstrom? Think 'lasso' and you won't be far wrong. A tight feeling around my belly button pulling me inwards on myself. Anyway…"

"Anyway, to speed things up…" the clear voice spoke beside him.

Jessica.

And to me, at least, her voice was as clear as a bell now. Her manner had changed too, as though she was no longer constrained in the same way.

"Eventually, this annoying… jinn," the term screamed 'insult'. "Condescended to remember exactly how he severed the connection to his source voluntarily, and told me how to do the same." She smiled. "It's actually very straight forward. You just need to know how to target the source and withdraw. I used to do something similar with Blu-tack when Anthony spilled his glitter as a kid."

"JINN!" Skull exclaimed. "How dare you call me that?! I'm a proud Type three with demonic tendencies."

Jessica shrugged. "Semantics." She commented.

Skull gave a petulant snort. "Besides, you weren't very accurate. Your Blu-tack manoeuvre did ghost touch Lockwood."

Jessica and I jerked our heads round in horror to look at Lockwood who was still unconscious on the floor.

"Relaaax! He's fine. He's just having a nice nap." The Skull commented with irritating complacency. "I just meant that I could feel your essence touch his skin." He held up his own finger and pointed with his opposing hand.

There was no mark, but then there wouldn't be.

"It stung." He said simply.

Remembering the pain I'd felt as Jessica entered her source, I raised my own left hand and looked at the palm. It had a small bright red mark, a bit like a heat burn and there was still a very slight tingle when I concentrated. I crossed to Lockwood's sleeping form and bent to look at his left hand.

There was a similar mark.

I exchanged a glance with George. He looked confused since no one else in the room was party to the conversation I was having with the two ghosts.

"What's wrong, Luce?" Holly, failing to keep the concern from her voice, spoke for all of them.

I shook my head. "Nothing, I think. Skull says Jessica actually did ghost touch Lockwood, but he's ok. Look, you can see a mark on his palm."

Without understanding why, I didn't tell them about the similar mark on my own palm. George started fiddling with his glasses.

"And Jessica is ok?" He asked, pointedly.

Jessica hovered in front of him and did a little pirouette. She grinned and mouthed "THANK YOU!" to her watching audience.

The tension in the room broke and everyone started talking at once. Holly began the clear up and Kipps flopped back in his chair as though he'd been shifting furniture and had finally been allowed to lower it to the floor. Lockwood carried on sleeping, blissfully unaware.

Unnoticed, I stepped towards Skull and held up my hand, pointing to the mark.

"Jessica touches Lockwood's palm with her finger and your finger hurts. Lockwood's palm gets ghost touched and my palm hurts." I said quietly.

"WHY?"

Skull shrugged. "That's one for another day." He said simply. "But it's not something to worry about."

I stared at him in disbelief.

"Your track record on withholding vital information stinks." I told him. "With you there is always something to worry about."

He smirked his sardonic grin and "reclined" back against the wall as if he'd finally recovered his humour – and with it his swagger.

"Let's put it this way." He teased. "We're all still here…for now."

I gritted my teeth in frustration and turned to look at Lockwood lying obliviously on the floor.

As I watched, he turned onto his side and began to gently snore.